Digital footprints will keep on following you everywhere you go. Therefore, always hide your digital footprints, while you are working/browsing online.
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Whatever you do online, openly or in private, explains who you are. However, it is challenging to have control over all traces that you leave behind, and it also takes a lot of effort to cover them up.
All your online activities and data are universally available, as tracking your online information is a common practice these days.
Besides, if you have been unsociable for your overall life, it is impossible to obliterate yourself from all public records and leave aside the internet.
How to hide your digital footprints?
To avoid all your details getting out online, you either should have never signed into any website which is very far-fetched for any average individual residing in a well-developed country.
But you can be remarkably close to eliminating every online evidence that exists. It would be best if you were incredibly careful and never get exposed to this entire process. Many steps can be taken for total online anonymity.
As a lot of individuals are becoming tired of digital lives, it makes sense that many developers are taking it on themselves for creating utilities with this particular exhaustion in their minds.
Similarly, some non-proprietary techniques are also there that can be made to blow out any flame of an individual’s virtually connected image too.
Also read: 5 Ways Proxies Can Help You Save Your Digital Identity
If you want to cover up all your tracks, the simplest way of doing it would be not making any of them, and it will mean not making use of the internet. But be realistic as it will never happen and does not have to.
3 Steps to hide your digital footprints
Here are three tips that will help to hide your digital footprints. Read along to understand the pros and cons of all these measures that you can take.
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Examine all privacy settings
Check all the privacy settings of sites that you visit most frequently, mainly social media websites. It is vital to check the privacy level you have set for all social networks. Always try to tighten privacy options.
Check whether you have included any personal details on your profiles. If you have done so, then consider removing, decreasing, or hiding it completely.
Additionally, you may also sign up for many news feeds as well as email newsletters. Often you read most of them.
Therefore, start to unsubscribe from those that you never read. It will be decreasing the data available for your profiling.
If you need to give any email address to a website for registration, create a second one that you can use for only this kind of purpose. It will be keeping your inbox decent, or if you do not wish to provide your information, then create false ones like fake date of birth for any non-crucial mailing list.
Further, it will be misdirecting anyone who will be using the data for any profiling. Make use of disposable email addresses from various available services.
Also read: Why Government & Intelligence Agencies Hate Proxy Services
You can visit each of the websites with whom you directly have accounts and request personally to delete your account. Many services can let you know whether it will be easy or challenging to delete your account.
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Remove any unwanted account
Keep a count of the number of email accounts that you have been using till now. Understand that if you deactivate them, then it will be vital, and it must include finding and deleting all old services and corporate accounts.
It is evident that if you are not interested in letting anyone comb via your data online, you must not have an account on the most popular social media platform, Facebook, and think of deactivating or deleting your Twitter account.
If you also have an Instagram or Tumblr account where you have signed up must be removed regardless of how seemingly anonymous those are.
There are also many accounts that individuals never think of. For example, Google as well as Apple both need cloud-connected accounts for most of the services. Whereas your old account on Myspace is also accessible and can be lurked on too.
For all the remote profiles whose login details are a secret now, some tools can aid mitigate all your concerns. As links for deactivation are frequently intentionally stored away at the back of many mysterious settings menus, these tools are the perfect solution to navigate the problematic fast to find the digital world’s delete button.
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Make use of stealth mode along with a proxy server while browsing
The browser that you use also comes with its security and privacy settings adjusted to make internet use a lot more anonymous.
Some browsers such as Chrome include Incognito Mode; Firefox has Private Window, Internet Explorer has InPrivate Browsing, as well as users of Safari, can switch on to private browsing from the security settings of the browser.
The internet browser named Tor provides high anonymity standards as it will bounce every browser usage of yours across different servers worldwide. Thus, it will be impossible for any individual to get hold of your internet session.
You can also make use of anti-tracking tools. Many extra tools can also be used for masking internet browsings such as shared proxies.
Socks5 proxies are capable of preventing online transgressions without making you surrender the different necessities as well as luxuries that the internet offers.
Moreover, a lot of personal data that is collected now comes from social media networking sites. So be a bit more controlled with the use of all such sites and it will decrease the total quantity of information that can be gathered regarding you.
Verdict
Take care of your privacy and security in the digital world and learn how to hide your digital footprints. This post will assist you to reduce and cover up your digital footprints. To keep your online activities secure, it is recommended to use a reliable and cheap proxy service for peace of mind and to have a safe online browsing experience.